Tuesday 25th August 09

A relatively early start as I had to visit Helgi at 10 to sort out the music line-up for the Green Festival. I spent about 45 minutes with him, helping him do a variety of carefully worded emails so he can decide who to take out of the provisional line up for the main stage so that we can get Holly Tamar on before Seize the Day.

Then I bombed along to Rowntree Park to see if I could get John the Park Keeper's contact details, but he wasn't there. However, I did speak to the John's colleague and talked things over with him, and spoke to the children's inflatables people about the Festival too.

Came home via Country Fresh and picked up two boxes of compostables as well as a cauliflower and some bananas. Met a guy who repairs bikes called Kevin, who has a copy of a film that Gill saw in New Zealand in 1986 and she's never forgotten it. I asked if I could borrow it, in exchange for some dried fruit. It's called The Gods Must Be Crazy. I'm really looking forward to watching it... Gill's told me so much about it!

I had lunch. Then our guests arrived, Gill's niece Sophie and her three children, but not Dankie her husband who has taken all his holiday already and is at work. Her children get on well with ours and we love it when they visit.

During the afternoon, Gill and Sophie went to get some towels and pillowcases, and the children played happily on their own, so I did a load of chainsawing and splitting. Then Sophie took all the children to the park, and was gone for ages.

They came back shortly before I had to go out to the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel, due to be at Tang Hall Community Centre. When I got there at 6.30, the gates were locked shut and a conference was going on as to where to have the meeting. A consensus was reached to go to The Magnet pub on Osbaldwick Lane, so I cycled round followed by two cars. We had a lot to do, perhaps 8 or 10 applications including 3 or 4 which we opposed... and of course we had to explain why we opposed them, on planning grounds. It was a very lively meeting which lasted over an hour.

So back at 8pm and Gill had left enough pasta, cauliflower and sauce for me to have a really good meal. We had a lovely evening... warm as I lit the stove so I could make a carrot soup. The children went to bed without a hitch and quite late on, after Sophie had gone to bed, Gill and I started watching The Gods Must Be Crazy. The basic plot centres round a tribe of Bushmen in the Kalahari, who find a Coke bottle which had been thrown out of a plane and the chaos which ensues. It is full of slapstick and other humour, but there might be a message in there too.